Board Members

Jon Vlassopulos

Chief Executive Officer

Jon Vlassopulos holds the dual roles of CEO of skyrockit and GM, North America for Bellrock Media, skyrockit's parent company. He oversees the company's initiatives in branded entertainment and digital entertainment services, as well as its mobile personalization business. In this position, Jon has overseen the development of several successful branded entertainment projects, with successes such as the Virtual Zippo Lighter iPhone App, which has had over 5 million downloads thus far, and A&E's Paranormal State iPhone App, which is the most interactive TV application, with more than 50% of people watching the show also downloading the app. He has seen similar success at Bellrock with projects under way with big-name brands such as Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Myzo and the original programming project, "24 Hours at Sundance", a real-time, online reality show competition broadcast live from the Sundance Film Festival with Ashton Kutcher, which received over one million views.

Vlassopulos was most recently Senior Vice President, Digital Media & Branded Entertainment for Endemol, the global leader in entertainment programming. He was responsible for building Endemol's worldwide digital business and growing the company into new areas such as casual gaming and branded entertainment. He also revolutionized the interactive TV market in the U.S. with his work on hit shows like "Deal or No Deal". Prior to that, he served as Senior Director, Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at AT&T Wireless, launching major media brands on AT&T services including mMode. While at the carrier, he directed the launch of the first wireless music service, and ran major mobile marketing campaigns with brands like McDonalds and Kelloggs. His background also includes multiple executive positions at Bertelsmann in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Jon received his undergraduate degree from Durham University in Chinese, Economics and Korean. He serves on the board of NATPE, the National Association of Television Program Executives.

Aki Yorihiro

Senior VP, Corporate Development and General Counsel

Aki Yorihiro heads all corporate development and legal matters at Bellrock Media.  In addition, Aki serves as the U.S. Representative for Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd.  Bilingual and bicultural, he handles all business operations within our U.S. and Asian markets bridging East and West.  Prior to Bellrock, Yorihiro was a Corporate and M&A Partner at the international law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP, where he represented U.S. and foreign Fortune 500 companies on a variety of transactions, many of which were cross-bordered.  Yorihiro was the U.S. outside Counsel for Yoshimoto Kogyo, one of Bellrock’s strategic investors, in sports and entertainment transactions.  Yorihiro has been the outside General Counsel to Bellrock Media since inception, joining the team in February 2006. 

Kazumi Shimoyama

COO of Bellrock Media Japan and Director of Board for Moderati

At Bellrock Media Japan, Kazumi oversees multiple functions including sales, business development, investor relations, and fund management.

Before joining Bellrock in 2005, he played multi-task roles at several start-ups in Tokyo and San Francisco Bay Area, all of which provided completely new services to corporations. During his six-year carrier at Maxager Technology, Kazumi, based in California, played a sole liason between US Headquarter and Japan and took care of everything from software localization management to sales presentation to Japanese prospects.

Prior to that, he started his career at Bain & Company in Tokyo and served for Japanese domestic and international clients, and then joined Advantage Partners and became start-up members of two new businesses.

Kazumi received his undergraduate degree from University of Tokyo in Law and his MBA from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.